The Tick Tock Man

Epilogue

The senator was the last one to leave Trafalgar House. Most of the Unionist delegates, at least those who hadn’t, already stormed out in protest over one thing or another, had left on the Friday. A few who were working on the various subcommittees stayed on until the Saturday to complete their tasks.

But Abe Powers already knew what they optimistically refused to admit. The hopes and plans for a new Independent Ulster were dead in the water.

There may have been many small agreements, but the divisions on the bigger issues had become veritable chasms. Down to Bishop McLaverty’s quiet sabotage, he suspected, but then perhaps the outcome had been inevitable anyway.

Further talks were scheduled but Powers knew they would come to nothing, just wither away. Soon they would be overshadowed by events at the United Nations as the American-led demands for a United Ireland grew. And it would be he, Senator Abe Powers III, who orchestrated them. Already he had a series of meetings lined up with the President for the following week to expand on his proposals. His grandmother would have been proud of him.

On the Sunday morning he rose early. After a shower and shave he breakfasted in his room and admired the view. The sundrenched water meadows of the Avon and the distant spire of Salisbury Cathedral.

The newspaper he read was full of events which had culminated the previous weekend but had happened too late for the previous Sunday’s editions. Now the newshounds had chapter and verse on the IRA abduction of a bomb-disposal expert and the siege of a derelict brewery building. With extra days to put together the reports, there were eyewitness accounts, photographs, detailed diagrams, profiles of the terrorists and the main players involved. Fascinating stuff. Two SAS soldiers dead and two seriously wounded, many with more minor injuries.

Maybe the Brits wouldn’t be so keen to smirk now at the efforts of his own country’s special forces.

And the terrorists. Two dead and the two leaders badly injured, the woman still in intensive care, her life hanging by a thread.

He couldn’t agree with the endless speculation that had been in the press all week that there was some political motivation behind it — to put pressure on the government to agree to the rumoured new American initiative. Bishop McLaverty had assured him the IRA didn’t do that sort of thing and he should know.

His breakfast eaten, Powers finished packing his suitcases and called down for his chauffeur to collect them. On his way out he thanked the SAS major in civvies who had been in charge of security.

‘Just glad we had no problems, Senator.’

‘All your lads gone home?’

‘Left an hour ago. The locals will be pleased to have the road open again.’

‘And you, Major, posted off to somewhere exotic now, I expect?’

A wry smile. ‘Northern Ireland. Some things never change.’

Already the first of the removal vans had arrived to return the furniture, paintings and objetsd’artto the government repositories. In a few hours Trafalgar House would be empty again.

The major watched from the top of the steps as the American’s limo pulled smoothly away and disappeared down the drive towards the gatehouse. Heading for Alderbury on the edge of Salisbury, he knew, through a particularly beautiful and uninhabited stretch of countryside before taking the road towards Basingstoke and the M3 to London.

Sunlight warmed the soldier’s face and momentarily he closed his eyes, enjoying its comfort. Hadn’t seen much of this during the past few months. It had been another lousy English summer.

The explosion was unmistakable, even at that distance.

His eyes were open instantly, his hand moving to his shoulder holster. Below him on the drive the removal men were looking in the direction of the sound. One of them pointed. An oily cloud of smoke was mushrooming above the treeline.

But, even as the major ran towards his car, the man who had triggered the radio-controlled culvert bomb from a vantage point in the nearby copse was already on his motorcycle. The farmtrack would take him to the A36 in a few minutes.

Half-an-hour later Lewis Fawcett was in Southampton where he abandoned his machine in a back-street parking lot. He dumped his helmet and the overalls, which he had worn during his overnight vigil, in a large commercial dustbin before setting off on foot for the railway station.

There Fawcett bought a newspaper and drank a coffee while he waited for the train to take him to Waterloo. He took the Northern line to Euston, then bought a ticket to Stoke-on-Trent where he had left his car.

On the long and tedious journey, Fawcett thought how his life had changed since he’d left the Shankill as a young man to seek fame and fortune in Rhodesia as it was then. In fact he’d made neither as a special forces soldier. Not then, or even later when he switched allegiance to South Africa. Not now, after the second wind of change on the dark continent had persuaded him there was no future for his specialist skills under black majority rule.

Settle in Liverpool, old friends from Ulster advised him. Maybe we can put a little work your way. And from time to time they did. It helped to pay the mortgage on the little terraced house. The train had completed over half the distance to Stoke when the young man entered the carriage and took the empty seat opposite him. A T-shirt beneath his leather jacket, the hair on his bullet head razored to a bloom, it was the same man he’d met on the journey down, who had handed him the first half of the money in one plastic bag and an explosive device in another.

‘You’ve done us proud,’ he said to Fawcett and slid another carrier across the table between them. ‘With the compliments of Mr Jones. Go to the toilet if you want to count it.’

Fawcett noticed that the man had an initial tattooed on each knuckle of his right hand. PIKE — he couldn’t quite see the thumb. ‘I trust you. I’m back amongst friends. But you didn’t have to supply the goods. I could have made my own.’

‘No, you couldn’t. Not a replica like that. It would have been the wrong signature.’

‘Anyway it worked.’ To Fawcett, a bomb was a bomb.

‘One more thing.’

‘The phone call?’

An envelope was passed between them. ‘It’s safe to ring — no trace. And try to remember your old Ulster accent.’

Fawcett nodded. ‘I could do with more work.’

‘Maybe, we’ll see. This was a one-off. A sort of favour for a favour for old friends.’

‘No surrender, eh?’

The young man’s lips twitched in a half-smile. Then he was on his feet, sauntering away towards the next carriage.

Lewis Fawcett thumbed open the envelope and read what was typed on the sheet below the telephone number: The Provisional IRA was responsible for the execution of Senator Abe Powers III this morning. This was punishment for his failure to admit an official representative of this movement to attend the Trafalgar House Talks. Signed: AIDAN.

He had to smile.

It was one of those strange coincidence of events that so often seem to happen.

The following April, Clodagh Maria Dougan and Patrick McGirl were sent down for life at the Old Bailey on charges of murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.

That same Friday night the annual British Press Awards were being held at Grosvenor House. And Casey Mullins of the Evening Standard was on the shortlist for Feature Writer of the Year.

‘Is it true you’re being head-hunted by the Suri’ Eddie Mercs asked as the group made their way towards the tables. He didn’t even pretend to keep the envy from his voice.

‘Yeah,’ she replied, clutching at Harrison’s arm.

‘You’d be a fool not to take it.’

She looked at the reporter and frowned. ‘Listen, Eddie, rumour has it that one’s IQ automatically drops twenty points when you join the Sun — I’m not sure I can afford to lose that many.’ She glanced around her. ‘Where’s Candy got to?’

‘Last I saw, she was with Hal,’ Harrison said.

She shook her head: ‘That girl’s getting more like me every day. Still, who can resist those biker’s leathers?’

‘I’ll get some,’ Mercs said.

‘Forget it, Eddie. I’ve moved on to bombsuits.’

Billy Billingham, the features editor, was waving frantically from their table, his carrot hair and multicoloured bow tie unmistakable.

‘Does it revolve too?’ Harrison whispered in her ear.

Casey giggled. ‘And it squirts water.’

According to Mercs, the Standard’s proprietors had gone ape shit. Twice the number of tables as usual had been booked and there had been no objections when Casey had asked for Harrison and her daughter to be allowed to join them. No problem, Billingham had said. He had the editor’s ear and clearly the editor was certain that Casey had the title in the bag.

So she pushed her luck and added Midge Midgely and Al Pritchard to her list.

‘Why don’t you just invite every bomb-disposal man in the country?’ had been the sardonic reply.

In the event Pritchard declined, but the blunt Yorkshireman accepted enthusiastically.

Harrison was pleased to have his old friend for company. Although he’d now come to know many of Casey’s newspaper friends, he was still a little guarded in their company. Yet their cynicism and black humour, he came to realise, wasn’t that different from that of the military. Not that he himself would be in the military much longer. In August he was due to leave to set up his own specialist consultancy. Someone had estimated that there were a hundred million antipersonnel mines left scattered around the world, claiming the lives of innocent civilians every day.

That alone would keep his company and others busy well into the next century.

But the really funny thing was, it had been Pippa’s father who had put up the money for Harrison’s new venture. After reading about events at the brewery, the old buffer had apparently decided that bomb disposal was ‘proper soldierin’ ‘ after all.

Pippa herself was now living with her PR boss, Jonathan Beazley, and had custody of Archie. It seemed the air was filled with flying cross-petitions and there’d be some messy legal battles to come. At least Archie was more than happy to spend most of his time at Hurlingham; he was now a total hero to his friends and was more determined than ever to be an ATO when he left school.

‘Heard about Clodie Dougan, I suppose?’ Midge said after the meal, as the compere from UK Press Gazette introduced the Heritage Minister who would present the awards.

Harrison nodded. ‘Brought it all back today.’

Again he wondered about the culvert bomb that had killed Senator Abe Powers. It must have been planted by some other member of the AID AN unit who was not at the brewery. Whoever was responsible, with the American dead there had been no more talk of a United Ireland. The US President seemed to have other things on his mind. While back in the Province the violence just rumbled on as usual.

‘Wonder if Les has heard about the conviction,’ Midge said. ‘Seen him recently?’

‘Not since Christmas. He was in rehab at Headley Court. He was still smarting over losing his second leg. Couldn’t get the hang of his artificial ones. And he’d started drinking more than was good for him.’

Midge grinned. ‘Bloody legless, was he?’

Casey was on Harrison’s other side and heard the words. ‘That wasn’t…’

The Yorkshireman raised his hand. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, bomb man’s humour.’

It was then that the main award ceremony began in earnest. A lot of bad in-jokes, clapping and thank you speeches. The audience drunk and happy, black ties askew.

‘Now we come to the Feature Writer of the Year,’ announced the compere. ‘Stiff competition again, but we’ve a shortlist of six. Andy Dougall of The Times for his report on the Ethiopian famine. Bess Hartley of the Daily Mail for her series on the disabled living in modern society. Peter Bilton of The Independent for his Triad investigation. Casey Mullins of the Evening Standard for her highly personalised accounts of last year’s IRA bombing campaign in London…’

The air was electric now. Casey’s hand found Harrison’s on the table and he squeezed it reassuringly. She looked at him and grinned. How radiant she looked tonight, he thought, eyes dancing with anticipation like a kid at Christmas. Body tense in the sequinned black number that showed shoulders sprinkled with freckles and hair up to reveal the hanging pearl drops on her ears.

‘And the winner is…’ the Heritage Minister began, fumbling with the envelope.

Harrison squeezed harder. Mercs and Billy Billingham winked across the table.

‘Andy Dougall of The Times.’

The embarrassed, stuttering applause gradually built up as the journalist made his way towards the stage. No one had expected that. Casey’s face crumpled as she brought her hands together.

‘Sorry,’ Harrison said and kissed her cheek.

‘Outrageous,’ Mercs grumbled. ‘You was robbed.’

The ceremony moved laboriously on, but the magic spell had been broken. The glitz and glamour of it all now seeming self indulgent and tiresome, even phoney.

‘Just before we end tonight’s proceedings,’ the compere said, ‘I have a special announcement to make. The judges have taken the decision to introduce a new award for firsthand account journalism which will be given in future only in the most exceptional circumstances. It will be named after its first recipient. The Casey Mullins Award.’

The hall exploded into applause. Casey was stunned, reeling as Harrison and Mercs helped her to her feet and propelled her towards the stage.

‘…And to present tonight’s prize,’ the compere continued, ‘…a very honoured special guest.’

As Casey mounted the steps, the curtains parted at the back of the stage. A tall, lean figure walked uncertainly forward.

Harrison’s mouth dropped. He couldn’t believe it.

Midgely stared. ‘It’s Les.’

‘…Mr Leslie Appleyard of the Metropolitan Police Explosives Section,’ the voice continued over the amplifier, ‘the subject of one of Casey Mullins’s most moving accounts of the Tick Tock Men — a term the nation now has taken to its heart.’

The embrace between Casey and Appleyard seemed to last for ever before the compere managed to prise her away and lead her to the microphone.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she gasped for breath. ‘Ladies, gentlemen, I–I don’t know what to say… To see Les here walking again is the greatest prize I could get… to win this award as well… it’s too much!’

She looked back at the Expo and smiled. Then, regaining some composure, she continued: ‘Hell, I’m going to be ail-American and schmaltzy about this, I’m sorry. I just wrote about what other people did. This is their story. In particular it’s Tom Harrison’s story. Tom and I hope to marry later this year.’ As the crescendo of cheers and wolf whistles rose, she squinted out beyond the spotlights. ‘Tom, could I ask you to join me up here? My quiet hero…’

Midgely pushed his friend forward. ‘Go on, you old bastard, it’s your moment of glory. I’ll never let you live it down.’

The applause had become a standing ovation by the time Harrison had reached the stage.

‘I’d rather defuse a bomb than this,’ he said hoarsely in her ear.

She laughed, holding her trophy high for everyone to see. ‘Who needs a Pulitzer, Tom? I’ve got a Mullins.’

He kissed her cheek and looked out over the sea of cheering faces. From the corner of his mouth, he whispered: ‘So have I.’